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White-collar federal workers on average are either overpaid by about 16 percent or paid an average of 26.3 percent less compared to their private-sector counterparts. Those numbers confirm that there is a pay gap. But that's about it, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. Could they both be right? Or wrong?

Mike, are you telling us that, somewhere in Congress, there is a person (or persons) who tried to distort facts to serve a narrow political interest? Golly, who would have thought that this would happen? I am easily as shocked as Captain Renault was (in Casablanca) when he "discovered" gambling was happening at Rick's.

If you haven't read those reports for yourself, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that you haven't, then you don't know what you are talking about and you are merely choosing to believe what you want to believe, i.e., that the CBO report was cooked so as to screw federal civil servants. First, forget "averages" of the entire federal work force, because that is so hopelessly misleading and deserving of little time or attention. (Why shouldn't pay be adjusted according to the nature of the job and the salary it brings in the private sector, with reductions over time to the pay of currently overpaid job categories and increases sooner rather than later to those that are currently underpaid?) Second, we need to know how much various "demographic" factors influence the analysis and consider whether their inclusion contributed to a clearer picture or distorted it. The CBO has a very good reputation for objectivity and reliability, so absent good reason (and having read their report for themselves) one ought not express incredulity at what they have to say about this matter.

And yet your response, pensioner, ignores the long history of people (in Congress)skewing numbers in order to support a narrow political view. The argument was not that the CBO was WRONG, but that the manner in which the question was parsed created a situation in which certain information was excluded which would have (probably) changed the results.
I would also note that the sarcasm of my response has eluded you... as in it was NO surprise to me that this type of gamesmanship was occurring.

Good job with the comments and response to pensioner. It should be noted that pensioner has nothing to lose by the CBO report because he is already retired. Is he a Republican?------I would like to know who commissioned this
report. Was it the House, which is controlled by the Republicans? If so, you can expect a slanted anti fed report. If it was the Senate, then I would reconsider my opinion.

It is interesting that according the study who included sex in the comparison that women make more in the federal government than in the private sector. Can we say shame on the private sector. Does that mean that men make even less in the federal government? I must agree that the lower pay grade probably do make more in the government that they would in the private sector. We have a mail clerk who has been with the government 27 years, I think, could be more. He/She is a GS 4. At a a step 10, He/She is making over $17 an hour. That is a job that is worth a little over minimum wage. So yes, He/She is over paid. There is no way He/She would get that pay for the same job in the private sector. However, as people in those positions retire, they are not getting replaced. Other than getting my own mail, and putting postage on my own mail, I do everything else myself. That is the wave of the future.

Instead of Mr. Causey giving us his couple of sentence or so summaries of reports on federal-vs-private pay; the costs of federal retirement systems; etc., it would be nice if he would provide links to those reports so we could see them in their entirety and reliably inform ourselves.

Pensioner: So how do you feel about FBI agents making $150K/year with 20 year retirement? Or Admin Staff at GS-5, 6, or 7? Or SSA with an army of Administrative Law Judges? Or join the State Department see the world? I'm guessing that one person's overpaid job is another person's bread and butter. Like Mike Causey used to say, if you think Military Golf courses are so good, why don't you join the military?